"For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth
to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him." [2
Chronicles 16:9]
When I first
considered going back to Romania long term, my Romanian pastor Raul referenced
this verse. He wanted to confirm that my heart was for the Lord and for
Romania.
After four weeks of
cross-cultural long-term missionary training, the heart remains the most
important thing when it comes to being effective, no matter where we go.
Training, knowledge and experience, while a good thing, are nothing without the
right heart.
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Heart for Culture
God created unique
cultures around the world. Every culture often represents God in its own way
and when we experience different cultures we often walk away with a bigger
picture of who God is. However, because we are so familiar with our own
culture, it is easy to judge other cultures and the ways they do life.
Therefore it is important to have a heart for culture - to die to our own
culture and value what we can learn from other cultures.
Heart for People
This may seem obvious, but it is not as simple as we may want it to be. Most of us as
Americans are task-oriented. We like to see results and accomplish big things.
Again, being driven toward a certain goal is not a bad thing but majority of the
world cultures value relationships over the task. We must be willing to lay
down our go-go-go and do-do-do mentality in order to love people and build
relationships.
Heart for your Team
You may have heard
the African proverb "If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go
far, go together." We were designed for community and to work together.
Without a solid team it would be hard to be effective and even to survive in
another culture for long. However, to have a solid team everyone must have a
humble heart and listening ear. It is important to value and love your team.
Heart of the Gospel
It is easy to think
"Those people or this country need the gospel so much!" but I heard
this statement during the first week of training and it stuck: "You can
never preach the gospel to someone who needs it more than you do." No matter
how long we have been walking with God, we need the gospel every day. Even if I
am going to be a missionary, I am still a broken sinful person. I fall into
pride and idolatry. I make mistakes. But the heart of the gospel is God knew
all this about me and he still loved me and he chose me. Now I have to daily
walk in the truth that my acceptance, my identity and my satisfaction is found
in God alone. As I remember the gospel each day, it is a reminder of the goal
of the missionary as well: "For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus
Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake." [2
Corinthians 4:5] I have to daily humble myself in order that God would be
glorified.
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I titled this heart
of the missionary, but be reminded that we are all called to be missionaries
where we are. I pray God would shape our hearts in humility to be more like
Jesus each day.
